Hello everyone! It was a good week! Sorry I didn't email yesterday, Elder Kennedy had a visa trip, so we were up in the city. I'll tell more about that later. So the week: Tuesday, we had district meeting. Fun stuff. Then we had a meeting with our investigator who found us on the internet, and he's the bomb. He told us that he got the impression to pray with his own words, like we did in our lessons, to know if the Book of Mormon was true... this was before we gave him one... and he says he know's it's true and can't wait for March 22nd. He's awesome. On Wednesday we had the 2013 Audit of Pskov branch, done by a senior couple from Texas who are living in Moscow, serving the whole Europe East Area. They haven't been "home" to Moscow in months. They just travel all the time. Anyways, all went smoothly and nobody got excommunicated. The money is all accounted for. On Thursday a young man had a baptismal interview conducted by my companion, and he passed. Sweet. Friday we got our room checked for cleanliness by a senior couple living in Novgorod, they came all the way here just to do that. We also did splits with the other Elders from our district that night. I was with the Russian Elder, bummer that I can't say his name. It was really fun, he taught me a lot, and all I want now is to serve with Russians. That's it. Also, the kid who was supposed to be baptized on Saturday, his Mom wouldn't sign the permission slip, so that was a bummer. He's gotta wait three more years or soften the heart of his mother. So that was kinda a bummer for the week. We were supposed to get transfer calls on Saturday, but President Clark was in Turkey, so he did it on Sunday. Saturday, we finished the split, cleaned the branch building, and met a less active at his work and walked home with him, just chatting. Sunday morning... TRANSFER NEWS: The moment you've all been waiting for.. Ok... here goes... it's coming... I'm leaving Pskov, I'll be going to Avtovo! It's the south-western part of St. Petersburg. Here's what I know: I know the bishop (there's a ward there), huge ward, love to do missionary work, they function almost like an American ward, and it's gonna be sweet. President Clark told me that I'm going from one extreme in our mission to the other. President Lawrence, or however you spell that, came here last spring (he's from the Area Presidency) and went to church in Avtovo. He said that the feel there is like nothing he's felt in Eastern Europe as far as how it should work and feel in the church, and the ward should be a model for all others in the area. So it's gonna be sweet. I'll miss my friends in Pskov. I'm excited and nervous and everything, I heard that going to your second area is like starting over in Russia because right now Pskov is Russia to me. Hopefully it won't be too much of a shock. My companion will be Elder Wilkins, I know absolutely nothing about him other than I've seen hime once and his suit was three sizes too big. After chruch we had to get on a bus to go to the city becuase Elder Kennedy had a visa trip. That night, as I was falling asleep, the door opened and Elder Kartchner came and jumped on me. He was sleeping in the other room, but we made a plan to go on a split the next day, seeing as our companions would be gone to Estonia. We had a blast. We just chatted and had a good time. We went to the market with fake versions of whatever you can imagine, we went to legal stores, we went and got great food. We saw a guy on the Metro on the way back wearing an old American flag as a scarf, with an NBC jacket with "Sochi" written in English, and a US Olympic Team jacket under that. So I was so happy to see an American with so much courage to wear all that in public here. I asked him where he was from in Russian, he look at my tag, looked at my face, and answered in Russian "I'm Russian. What do you want?" Then we talked to him a bit, turns out he was the chef for the US Olympic Team while they were here. He was zero percent interested in the church, but it was a cool chat. Then a bus home. That's about all for my week. It was a good one.
Today in District Meeting I'm teaching about the Plan of Salvation. I thought I'd shake things up and not draw the picture with the circles and the lines... crazy, right? I studied it today and I'm going to point out that the Plan of Salvation lesson is really The Mission of Jesus Christ lesson. I'm great, I hope I do alright. Just think about all the steps in the Plan and try to figure out the role that Christ plays in each of them. It'll be fun.
Love ya all,
Andrew
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